BUFORD -- While summer days on the lake may seem like a distant memory, the deadly 2012 season has lawmakers focused on Georgia's biggest drinking water and recreation source this winter.

Legislators who live along Lake Lanier's boundaries began meeting this fall to study issues at the man-made body of water, after several summer accidents turned to tragedy. Plus, drought has drained the lake to levels that haven't been seen since 2009.

Earlier this year, Gov. Nathan Deal said the death of two Gwinnett brothers in a boating accident has him backing an amendment that would match boating under the influence limits to driving under the influence levels, and Buford Sen. Renee Unterman who is heading the caucus, said other regulations are under discussion. Those could include talks of mandatory boating education and licensure.

During a recent hearing, she said, the board learned that the state is in the top five for boat thefts and people often cross state lines to avoid paying sales tax. The group also learned that after a recent altercation there are no state laws protecting federal rangers.

Unterman has planned two town hall meetings for Saturday in an attempt to get feedback from the public on those issues and other possible regulations before any bills are written for the General Assembly, which goes into session in January.

The first will be held from 10:30 to noon at the ballroom of the Gainesville Civic Center. Another session will begin at 1 p.m. at Buford City Hall.

Comments

and our govt springs into action making more useless and unnecessary laws that will have no effect on the problem, AND maybe cause more problems in the process. How about, instead petitioning the Army COE to fill the lake back up...there's be a novel idea!

before writting more uneeded laws why not see what other states with more lakes have don to decrease accidents and drowings. maybe what is needed is a 15' high fence around the lake to keep everyone safe.a boat registry wouldn't hurt.

If you reduce the Alcohol Limit from, say, 0.10 to, say, 0.08 as the blood alcohol threshold, and your boater already exceeds the 0.10 limit, then what difference does it make if the alcohol limit is lower? The idiot that spawned this discussion was already over the higher limit, so making a lower one does NOTHING!

The only change that needs to be made is to make some examples out of offenders that have life altering consequences for them, and then you will see some changes in behavior. Make an example out of one, two, or three, and the rest of them will get the message and say "...well, I better not do that..."

Why are we not stopping more development in Gwinnett until this issue is solved. I'm tired of being asked to stop using water so we can build more things in Gwinnett. This sucks. What about more water retention ponds, lakes, water wells? Soon Gwinnett will end up being a ghost town without water. then how more development will the BOC vote for?